


Refuge

by tastewithouttalent



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Battlefield, Blood and Injury, Inline with canon, Kissing, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-05 05:19:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18359405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Merry's body is moving, and his self is still tied close enough to it to notice, and there is a voice, as achingly familiar as the smell of fresh-cut grass and the sweet of stolen plums." At the end of the war, there is only one thing Merry is still sure of.





	Refuge

Merry is dreaming.

At least he thinks he is. It’s hard to tell the difference between waking and sleeping, between nightmares and reality; the pain has saturated his body, has spread from a dull ache to all-consuming and back to distant again, fading into the farthest reaches of Merry’s awareness. Merry knows better than to mistake that for a good sign; the growing distance between his thoughts and his pain is a gap of body and mind, an indication of his consciousness pulling free of its physical restraints. But he’s been fighting so long, for what feels like lifetimes of effort, even if the sun has stood still and unmoving in the sky overhead, and he has finally had enough of the battle he so craved to join. He has done his part, has played his role; the war must pass on into others’ hands, now, while the weight of his eyelids draw themselves shut and he slides free of the body and the world where it has always lived until now.

The motion is surprising. He had expected stillness, the weight of endless darkness to bring an end to life, to himself, to everything; without the strength to so much as lift a hand, he thought the last movement he would feel would be those last few desperate swings he took before being crushed to the earth where he must shortly be laid to rest. But his body is moving, and his awareness is still tied closely enough to it to notice, and there is a voice, as achingly familiar as the smell of fresh-cut grass and the sweet of stolen plums. There’s a strain to that voice, though, a panic that is no part of Merry’s nostalgia but that he remembers all the same, remembers in the catch of a shout made desperate on sudden, inevitable loss, and it’s then that Merry struggles back into the dull-aching reality of his physical body so he can open his eyes on a sight he thought never to see again.

“Merry.” There is support under Merry’s shoulders, an arm around him and a hand cradling the back of his head; weight presses to his side, shifting the burden of his armor against the endless hurt that all his ribs have become. Overhead the sky is a dim blue with the advent of the night Merry didn’t think he would see fall around him, and framed by stars, a vision out of the same dreams that Merry’s incoherent thoughts have invented for him: Pippin, leaning in close so his face is the only thing Merry’s tired eyes need to seek. “It’s me.”

Merry stares. It’s impossible, to have Pippin here, now, after so much distance and so many days have pulled apart that connection that he had thought as unbreakable as anything in this world; but with his thoughts still hazy and uncertain in his own mind it seems somehow right, that in fraying the link he has kept with his own existence he might be able to win back this one comfort at the last. He blinks, trying to bring his gaze into greater focus, trying to push back the haze that has laid itself over his mind and memories. Pippin’s mouth shifts, flickering with a smile even as his eyes go liquid with the threat of tears. “It’s Pippin.”

Merry’s chest aches, straining with something other than the pain that has crushed him from himself, something so long-lost he had thought to never feel it again. He smiles, or maybe only thinks he does; but it’s enough, anyway, to have his gaze focused on Pippin’s face once more, to have the support of the other’s arm around his shoulders even here, on this field that has stripped him of everything else. It is hard to speak, hard to force air into his lungs and harder to frame it to words that make sense as anything other than rasping pain, but Merry musters the last strength he has left to himself and manages it, fixing himself to the soft of Pippin’s gaze on him while he fights for the words he has to speak, even if they prove to be the last anyone ever hears.

“I knew you’d find me.” It’s a whisper, hardly loud enough for even Merry to hear himself, but Pippin hiccups a breath and says “Yes” and that’s enough, that’s more than Merry had ever hoped to hear. His strength gives way, spent along with his breath in those few words, and his head drops to the side, the attention of his gaze carried aside as his chest struggles for breath under the weight of the armor still strapped around him. Fingers touch his hair, a gentle hand smoothes the sweat-damp weight of the curls back from his face, and Merry feels himself coming undone, as if the affection of Pippin’s touch is unraveling him from himself even as it argues the joy of surviving.

Merry blinks hard, the motion the only thing he can find for himself as his vision blurs out of his keeping, as his breathing pulls to strain. It’s only the weight of the hand clutching against his chest that is holding him steady, only the give of the fabric under his reaching fingers that is keeping him here; if those fingers slide away from his hair, if that gaze moves away from him… “Are you going to leave me?”

“No, Merry.” Pippin’s voice sounds distant, breathless like he’s struggling for the words, or as if the wind is tugging them away from his lips before they can reach Merry’s ears, but Merry hears them all the same, feels the comfort of them more surely than the weight of Pippin’s hold pressing against his chest. “I’m going to look after you.”

Merry blinks again, trying to bring his vision back into clarity, but his sight slides away from him, swept aside by that wind tugging at his hair like it’s trying to pull him free of the security of Pippin’s hand against his cheek. The touch at his face shifts, fingers sliding to cradle against Merry’s face as if to hold him still, to keep him present in his fading awareness of his body; and then there’s heat, warm friction pressing close against his mouth. Merry’s mouth softens, his lips easing instinctively to the comfort of the contact against him; it’s only as Pippin is drawing back that his slowed thoughts recognize the kiss for what it was, that his mouth prickles as if with renewed life found from the weight of Pippin’s lips against his. Merry shuts his eyes, lets his lips part on a breath of something between relief and gratitude, and as Pippin shifts over him he feels himself fading out, falling at last into the painless oblivion of true unconsciousness.

He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to find his way back. The choice is out of his hands, given up along with his slackened grip at the sleeve of Pippin’s coat; but even if this is the last moment they have together, Merry smiles for it as the rest of the world fades out to darkness.


End file.
